The Power of Enduring Prayer
Notes
Transcript
A. Rapport for the time
The conversation that we have started having together of Wednesday nights is one that is extremely important in helping us grow in our relationship in Christ. Prayer can be a difficult topic because we feel as Christians we should know how to pray because we have been around it our entire life. Yet, in truth, we often feel inadequate in our prayers and don’t allow ourselves to be human. Scripture never does that to us as Christians. The word of God shows us that in our inadequacy is exactly the place we find God meeting us with the death of his son to pay for our inadequacy. In fact, it is only when we face our inability that we can truly grow as a child of God.
B. Reading of the text
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
C. Review of the text
What a journey we have been on with in the book of James some 28 weeks.
I had a running list going of all the topics that have been discussed in the book of James.
• Trials
• Wisdom from God
• Humility
• Unchanging God
• Don’t deceive yourself
• Goodness of God
• Embracing God’s word because of his Goodness to us
• Living our Faith out —Being a doer of the word-True faith
· Show no partiality
• Real faith is only lived out dead faith produces no change in our life
(this is the transformative power of Christ’s grace, urging us to forgive and show mercy. It’s a call to live grace-filled lives that reflect the mercy we’ve received through Jesus.
• A teacher’s tongue—guardian of the word
• self-centered vs God-centered
The grace of God
Freedom in Christ
and last week the power of prayer in the life of a believer
James has covered just about any topic you can think about multiple times as he has constantly challenged our heart to walk with the Lord.
D. Relevance of the text
In the text we will be in this morning we are looking at the power of God in prayer put on display in the life of Elijah. We are covering just two verses this morning for the simple fact to really stop and think about Elijah the man and how God used him in such a mighty way. The desire is for us this morning is to understand the Power of God and his ability to use anyone for his purposes. That includes you and I as we are connected to him in prayer.
The Power of Persistent Prayer
The Power of Persistent Prayer
1. Elijah's Exemplary Faith
1. Elijah's Exemplary Faith
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
Don’t you love how James just all of a sudden brings Elijah into the conversation. He is in the middle of talking about how we are to confess sin to one another and pray for each other as we walk the Christian life in this world. Then in two little verses all of a sudden we have Elijah on our hands.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours—What is James Saying?
Well it is the same thing that Barnabas and Paul had happen to them when they healed the lame man in Lystra.
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
James 3. Effective Prayer (5:13–18)
However great the results of his prayer, this great effect did not change his essential nature as a mere man, a simple believer.
Little back story on Elijah and what is going on during the time that he is a prophet to Israel..Baal worship, people serving not God alone
Elijah is just a human like you and I. He didn’t walk on water, he was a sinner in desperate need for his Lord and walked with Him daily as God used him in marvelous ways.
Elijah would raise the widow’s son
19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed.
20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”
21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”
22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.
Fire came down from the heavens
18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.
40 days and 40 nights on one meal
7 And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”
8 And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
Went to heaven in a fiery chariot 2 Kings 2:11
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.”
10 And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.”
11 And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
12 And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
Elijah would appear with Moses at the transfiguration
3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
Now the man, the human side of Elijah. He would get hungry just like you and I. Nothing makes us more human than our need for food to sustain life.
To the widow woman he asked for food.
11 And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.”
Just before this he was fed by the ravens. God used ravens to feed Elijah.
4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”
5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan.
6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
Elijah in the middle of all that God was doing feared death fleeing Jezebel who was out to kill him.
1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”
3 Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
God had used Elijah to clean up the house of Israel by taking out the prophets of Baal. It was a judgement from God carried out by Elijah. After seeing all that he had in his life why would he doubt God’s ability to take care of him in the midst of him being obedient to what God had told him to do? He was still human!
This episode in the life of Elijah led him to ask God to take his life.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.”
Notice God meets Elijah in his humanness by sending the angel of the Lord to care for him. Just to be clear, the angel of the Lord in the OT is Jesus before his is born in Bethlehem coming to Elijah in a time of stress and deep need.
Truly think about this. The same person that goes and challenges all prophets of Baal to who has the power is the same guys who asks to die. Listen to Elijah.
25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.”
26 And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made.
27 And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”
28 And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.
29 And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.
31 Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,”
32 and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahs of seed.
33 And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.”
34 And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time.
35 And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.
36 And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
T.S.
2. Elijah's Effective Prayers
2. Elijah's Effective Prayers
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.
Prayed Fervently—intensely passionate
Word for word translation of this in our English would be Prayed with prayer.
1 Kings chapters 17-18 show us the story behind the prayer of Elijah.
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”
Some things we need to understand about Elijah and why he is praying for rain.
MacArthur Study Bible NASB Commentary
The autumn and spring rains and summer dew were necessities for the crops of Israel. The Lord had threatened to withhold these from the Land if His people turned from Him to serve other gods
18 And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins,
19 and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.
16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;
17 then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.
23 And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron.
24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
Elijah prays for the drought to prove that Baal, the god of the rains and fertility, had no power like the one true God. Fervent, Enduring prayer comes from the heart of Elijah as he is looking at a people who are defaming the name of God. Elijah is call the people of Israel to repentance as he prays to show them the lack of ability in a false god. Now what is the most amazing part of it all is that the rain does not just stay away for a day or a week. The message that God uses Elijah to send to his people endures for 3 years and 6 months.
41 And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.”
42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.
43 And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times.
44 And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’ ”
45 And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.
46 And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Gospel—power of the Spirit that dwells inside of us to overcome any of our fears
Perhaps explore how Elijah's prayers led to tangible change, illustrating that persistent prayer is not futile. Discuss the specific example of Elijah praying for rain and how this act of reliance on God brought about a miraculous result. This could serve as a powerful example for your congregation to remain consistent in prayer, trusting that God is working His purposes in His timing, as Jesus also taught us to believe without doubting.
